Carsten Hensel and Vladimir Kramnik – no longer a team

12/22/2008 – "We would like to inform you that we will not extend our contract," says the terse statement put out by the many-year manager of Vladimir Kramnik. Carsten Hensel, who was directly responsible for the organisation of World Championship matches (Kramnik-Leko, Kramnik-Anand) and the computer match Kramnik-Deep Fritz, parts company with his main client on December 31st. Press release.

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Common Press Statement by Vladimir Kramnik and Carsten Hensel

We would like to inform you that we will not extend our contract which is ending
on 31 December 2008.

We would like to stress that our decision had already been made some months
prior to the 2008 World Chess Championship match in Bonn, Germany. This agreement
was not caused by any kind of personal problem between us. Our amicable relationship
and mutual respect remains and is in no way affected by this step.

The main reason for the decision was simply that both of us are looking ahead
for new challenges and priorities in our professional as well as in our private
life.

We would like to confirm that Vladimir Kramnik is still definitely eager to
continue his professional chess career. Carsten Hensel will concentrate more
intensively on the organization of high level events. He remains the manager
of International Grandmaster Peter Leko.

While we are on the subject – and while the Chirstmas festivities
loom – may we remind you that we have a very exciting product by the former
World Champion...

Born in 1975 in Tuapse on the shores of the Black Sea, Vladimir Kramnik studied
at the Botvinnik-Kasparov chess school. At 16 he was included in the Russian
Olympiad team and scored a sensational 8.5/9, the best result at the Olympiad.
After that followed a string of great tournament results, culminating in a world
championship challenge. In 2000 Kramnik played the chess legend Garry Kasparov
and beat him to take the title, which he successfully defended in 2004 against
Peter Leko and 2006 against FIDE champion Veselin Topalov, whom he defeated
to take the unified world championship title.

On this DVD Vladimir Kramnik retraces his career from talented schoolboy to
World Champion in 2006. With humour and charm he describes his first successes,
what it meant to be part of the Russian Gold Medal team at the Olympiad, and
how he undertook the Herculean task of beating his former mentor and teacher
Garry Kasparov. Kramnik dissects his wins against Leko and Topalov, giving us
a vivid impression of the super-dramatic final games of the 2006 match. His
commentary is full of useful advice and provides a fascinating insight into
the thought processes that govern top level play.

The DVD contains more than six hours of video with narrative and game analysis.
There are also five additional segments from an exclusive video interview on
the intrigues that surrounded the 2006 world championship, and on the state
of the chess world in general.

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

On this 60 mins video we are going to concentrate on a simple, very solid idea in the main line Scandinavian, which even Magnus Carlsen has used to win games. Black focusses on making his life easy in the opening and forces White to work very hard to get advantage – but it is doubtful if White can get an advantage. Club players are always on the lookout for effective, time-saving solutions and here we have just that. Accompany FIDE Senior Trainer and IM Andrew Martin on this 60 mins video. You can learn a new opening system in 60 mins and start to play it with confidence on the very same day!

Enjoy the best moments of recent top tournaments (World Cup, Isle of Man Open) with analysis of top players. In addition you'll get lots of training material. For example 10 new suggestions for your opening repertoire.